Sexism and Violence" in William Styron's Sophie's Choice

Abstract

The thesis entitled Sexism and Violence in William Styron's Sophie's Choice picturizes the predicament of the protagonist, Sophie, a central female character in the novel and shows the evils of the patriarchal social system in the world in general and Poland and American South in particular. To show the systematic bias of patriarchal society, Styron has created characters like Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo. To make Sophie pitiable Styron presents her as submissive, obedient and a sufferer of the male biased world. Styorn presents the male in general as learned, objective, factual, and scholars, whereas female as simple minded but obsessed and hysterical. They are also represented as being obsessed with sex and their own desirability to show the actual nature of sexist/patriarchal social structure. For that Styron presents Sophie as a pitiable female victim of patriarchal society.